Kinetics Study on Reaction between Dihydroartemisinic Acid and Singlet Oxygen: An Essential Step to Photochemical Synthesis of Artemisinin

Artemisinin is an excellent antimalarial drug widely used in clinical medicine. However, due to the limitation of natural source of artemisinin, the chemical synthesis of artemisinin has achieved substantial attention. Dihydroartemisinic acid is a key precursor for the synthesis of artemisinin. The reaction of dihydroartemisinic acid with singlet oxygen to form peroxide is a pivotal step in the photochemical preparation of artemisinin. Nevertheless, the reaction kinetics of dihydroartemisinic acid with singlet oxygen has not been investigated previously. Herein, we report the rate constants of the reaction between dihydroartemisinic acid and singlet oxygen. By directly detecting the luminescence decay kinetics of singlet oxygen at 1270 nm at room temperature, the reaction rate constants of singlet oxygen and dihydroartemisinic acid in different solvents are obtained to be 1.81\begin{document}$\times$\end{document}10\begin{document}$^5$\end{document} (mol/L)^-1·s^-1 in CCl\begin{document}$_4$\end{document}, 5.69\begin{document}$\times$\end{document}10\begin{document}$^5$\end{document} (mol/L)^-1·s^-1 in CH\begin{document}$_3$\end{document}CN, and 3.27\begin{document}$\times$\end{document}10\begin{document}$^6$\end{document} (mol/L)^-1·s^-1 in DMSO, respectively. It is found that the reaction rate constants of dihydroartemisinic acid with singlet oxygen increase as polarity of the solvent increases among the three solvents. These results provide fundamental knowledge to optimize experiment conditions of photochemical synthesis of artemisinin for improving the yields of artemisinin.     

First principles calculations of oxygen reduction reaction at fuel cell cathodes

The efficiency of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) depends critically on materials, in particular for the cathode where the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) occurs. Typically, mixed conducting perovskite ABO₃-type materials are used for this purpose. The dominating surface terminations are (001) AO and BO₂, with the relative fractions depending on materials composition and ambient conditions.Here, results of recent large-scale first principles (ab initio) calculations for the two alternative polar (La,Sr)O and MnO₂ (001) terminations of (La,Sr)MnO₃ cathode materials are discussed. The surface oxygen vacancy concentration for the (La,Sr)O termination is more than 5 orders of magnitude smaller compared to MnO₂, which leads to drastically decreased estimated ORR rates. Thus, it is predicted for prototypical SOFC cathode materials that the BO₂ termination largely determines the ORR kinetics, although with Sr surface segregation (long-term degradation) its fraction of the total surface area decreases, which slows down cathode kinetics.     

Carbon-coated Li3VO4 with optimized structure as high capacity anode material for lithium-ion capacitors

Due to the high capacity, moderate voltage platform, and stable structure, Li₃VO₄ (LVO) has attracted close attention as feasible anode material for lithium-ion capacitor. However, the intrinsic low electronic conductivity and sluggish kinetics of the Li⁺ insertion process severely impede its practical application in lithium-ion capacitors (LICs). Herein, a carbon-coated Li₃VO₄ (LVO/C) hierarchical structure was prepared by a facial one-step solid-state method. The synthesized LVO/C composite delivers an impressive capacity of 435 mAh/g at 0.07 A/g, remarkable rate capability, and nearly 100% capacity retention after 500 cycles at 0.5 A/g. The superior electrochemical properties of LVO/C composite materials are attributed to the improved conductivity of electron and stable carbon/LVO composite structures. Besides, the LIC device based on activated carbon (AC) cathode and optimal LVO/C as anode reveals a maximum energy density of 110 Wh/kg and long-term cycle life. These results provide a potential way for assembling the advanced hybrid lithium-ion capacitors.     

A stochastic approach to capture crystal plasticity

A stochastic crystal plasticity model is proposed and applied within the rate-independent regime. As opposed to conventional deterministic algorithms wherein multiple slip systems are activated and redundant constraints may exist, the new Monte Carlo plasticity (MCP) paradigm is based on a stochastic chain of singly activated slip systems and thus avoids the possible ill-condition associated with multi-slip algorithms. The choice of the activated slip system is made at each Monte Carlo (MC) step based on the Metropolis algorithm. The MCP model is implemented within a Material Point Method (MPM) as a constitutive model to capture the elasto-plastic behavior of polycrystalline materials. A comparison with a commonly used singular value decomposition (SVD) algorithm indicates that MCP offers superior computational efficiency while maintaining comparable accuracy.     

Potential theory of infinite dimensional Lévy processes

We study the potential theory of a large class of infinite dimensional Lévy processes, including Brownian motion on abstract Wiener spaces. The key result is the construction of compact Lyapunov functions, i.e., excessive functions with compact level sets. Then many techniques from classical potential theory carry over to this infinite dimensional setting. Thus a number of potential theoretic properties and principles can be proved, answering long standing open problems even for the Brownian motion on abstract Wiener space, as, e.g., formulated by R. Carmona in 1980. In particular, we prove the analog of the known result, that the Cameron-Martin space is polar, in the Lévy case and apply the technique of controlled convergence to solve the Dirichlet problem with general (not necessarily continuous) boundary data.     

双分子水和氨气催化CF3OH分子裂解的理论研究

利用G3和CBS-QB3的理论方法研究CF₃OH分子裂解成FCFO和HF,并考虑大气中双分子和氨气对CF₃OH分子裂解的催化作用. 理论计算表明：由于在G3的理论水平下,计算的能垒为188.52 kJ/mol,所以CF₃OH分子在大气条件下不可能发生单分子裂解;当氨气和双分子水被加入时,能垒都被降到25.08 kJ/mol,起了强的催化作用. 除此之外,应用过渡态理论对速率常数进行了计算,计算结果表明：氨气催化CF₃OH分子的速率常数是单分子和双分子催化CF₃OH分子裂解速率常数的10⁹和10⁵倍. 考虑到大气中这些物质的浓度,计算结果预测了氨气催化CF₃OH分子裂解在大气中起到重要的作用.     

激发态Cs2和H2的电子-振转能级的碰撞转移

利用相干反斯托克斯拉曼光谱(CARS)探测技术, 研究了激发态Cs2与H2间的电子-振转能级的碰撞转移。用波长为532 nm和中心波长为716 nm的两束激光同时聚焦到样品池中, 扫描CARS谱确认了H2分子的S支(△v =1, △J=2)仅在v=1, J=4,5及v=2, J=3,4能级上有布居, 用n1、n2、n3、n4分别表示(2,4)、(2,3)、(1,4)及(1,5)上的粒子数密度。从CARS线的峰值得到n2/n1、n3/n1、n4/n1分别为6.34±1.27、3.66±0.73和1.45±0.29。转移能配置到振动、转动和平动的比例分别为0.44、0.06和0.50, 能量主要分配在振动和平动上。在T=523 K和PH2=2.5×103 Pa条件下, 通过求解速率方程组和对时间分辨CARS线轮廓的分析, 得到碰撞转移速率系数k1=(6.0±1.2)×10-14 cm-3s-1和k2=(4.0±0.8)×10-13cm-3 s-1。     

粉末活性炭对模拟间苯二酚废水的吸附

在静态条件下,研究了粉末活性炭对间苯二酚废水的吸附效果,通过实验优化了吸附条件,并在最佳处理效果下探究其吸附模式。结果表明,当水样pH值为4,温度30℃,活性炭用量0.3g,振荡时间10m in,振荡速率为120r/m in时,对废水的处理效果最佳。拟合得到活性炭吸附间苯二酚的模式符合F reund lich吸附模式。     

静电自组装方法合成的具有多孔三维网络结构的Fe_3O_4/石墨烯复合材料作为高性能锂离子电池负极材料(英文)

采用静电自组装方法,分两步合成Fe(OH)3/GO前驱体(GO:氧化石墨烯),再通过水热反应和600°C高纯氮气气氛下煅烧,获得了Fe3O4/石墨烯复合材料.通过X射线衍射(XRD)、扫描电镜(SEM)、高分辨透射电镜(HRTEM)、拉曼(Raman)光谱等多种分析,发现该复合材料具有三维多孔石墨烯网络结构.把合成的这种Fe3O4/石墨烯复合材料作为锂离子电池负极材料,电化学测试结果表明其具有优良的电化学性能:首次放电容量为1390 mAh·g-1,50次循环后容量为819 mAh·g-1.通过对比实验表明,三维石墨烯网络结构的形成对复合材料的电化学循环稳定性起着关键作用.     

Direct dynamics studies for the reactions of CF3CHFCF3 and CF3CF2CHF2 with H atoms

The rate constants of the hydrogen abstraction reactions of CF₃CHFCF₃ + H (R1) and CF₃CF₂CHF₂ + H (R2) have been calculated by means of the dual-level direct dynamics method. Optimized geometries and frequencies of stationary points and extra points along the minimum-energy path (MEP) are obtained at the MPW1K/6-311+G(d,p) level, and the classical energetic information is further corrected with the interpolated single-point energy (ISPE) approach by the G3(MP2) level of theory. Using the canonical variational transition state theory (CVT) with small-curvature tunneling corrections (SCT), the rate constants are evaluated over a wide temperature range of 200-2000 K. The calculated CVT/SCT rate constants are in good agreement with available experimental values. It is found that the variational effect is very small and almost negligible over the whole temperature region. However, the small-curvature tunneling correction plays an important role in the lower temperature range. Furthermore, the heats of formation of species CF₃CF₂CHF₂ (SC₁ or SC₂) and CF₃CF₂CF₂ are studied using isodesmic reactions to further elucidate the thermodynamic properties.